Inside 59

[Ionbound]

[Temple of Camazotz]

To the batwoman, the Priest's mind should be completely blank, impenetrable. He laughs and says, "Nice trick. Shame it doesn't work, isn't it," as he tries reach around her, one arm becoming a wing as he does so, and tries to use it to drag her into his blade.

The bat collective in unimpressed by the offer, their animal minds giving images of what to them are great hunts, winging through the sky, no member of the flock going hungry. These bats have lived very good lives so far, and it'll take more than that to turn them against the Priest.

[Lost_Deep]

A Park

"I... okay, that's actually kind of flattering. Thank you, I guess. But unless I completely misunderstood your subtext there, this is a... thievery business? Like, Carmen Sandiego for hire? How is that supposed to be respectable at all? I mean, you did mention removing parts of people, and I guess that could be good, but it could also be bad, especially if that's part of the "acquisitions" services offered!" Kate is not one to mince words needlessly. She does not use actual finger quotes there, but she is tempted.

[Recaiden]

[Temple of Camazotz]

As he gets close to reach, the dagger stabs out to try to cut through his wing, while the batwoman hops into the air above him, and flying along over the priest. She knows better than to come down right behind him.

"Nice trick. Shame it doesn't work."

A nod to the bats, no intent to turn them against anyone.

[Ionbound]

[Temple of Camazotz]

The priest swears as he's cut, shaking his head as he mutters, "Should have seen that coming." The hand reverts to normal, the injury mapping to a small but deep cut in his finger webbing, then watches the batlady, simply guarding for her next attack, knowing he doesn't have an opening to attack.

[Slii Arhem]

A Park

"Thievery is such a badly marketed word, and so I use acquisitions. As for respectability, at certain times in history and myth, thieves have been venerated for doing what is necessary for others to flourish. If the king's deer in the king's forest remained forever the king's, without poachers the village may starve. There are avaricious misers, collectors, and manipulators who hoard powerful and rare things as I'm sure you can picture. Sometimes, these things are needed for something important, and their current owners cannot agree to part with them. What then is the difference between possibly unqualified saviors attempting to get the object themselves, likely by force of arms, and them instead hiring someone to do it discreetly and with minimum bloodshed?" His tone is as reasonable and measured as his words, and he holds up his hands placatingly.

"Don't misunderstand me though, this is only one direction the company could go. The staff are, of course, pit spawn who would be inclined to do more than the justifiable jobs. And under another's management, I cannot say what vision they will have for it. Decisions such as merging the currently separate acquisitions and metaphysical concepts and aspects removal sections would be under your purview. If you felt that for some reason a concept such as true love needed to be stolen from someone to save people from a personification of hate, for instance, you would be responsible for that move whether it be a single exemption or a consolidation of our assets to aid each branch in the future."

[Recaiden]

[Temple of Camazotz]

"Now, what is it that werebats don't like? It wasn't silver, was it? That's wolves. Or was it gold that burned the wolves? Too many stories."
The batlady shrugs, and takes hold of her dagger with both hands as it reshapes itself into a spear.

"Father Camazotz, guide my strike."

She doesn't immediately charge at the priest. That would be silly. She lands and steps a little closer, probing for an opening, before feinting a lunge at his injured hand. If he falls for it, she'll quickly whirl the spear around, trying to cut with the edge of the spearhead.

[Lost_Deep]

A Park

Kate's quiet for a long bit, going over this in her head, giving it due thought.

"I... Part of me wants to say that I'll think about it and get back to you, but I won't say that, because my mind is already made up." Kate sighs. "I'm flattered that you offered this to me, but there's no way I'm going to do it. I'm not going to bend my own morals like that. I know that someone else might do horrible things with it, but... I'm not going to stoop to this." She stands up. "I... don't really wish you luck. In fact, I admit that I hope this flops utterly. But I'm not going to lie to you and try to sink it, and I'm not going to lie to myself and everyone else and try to run it." she shakes her head. "That's all I have to say."

[Slii Arhem]

A Park

Kate may be expecting a lot of things in return. A plea for consideration, an offended huff, perhaps even a vow for revenge. But no. Instead, Damien slips the papers back into the portfolio and quietly slides then into the trash can next to the bench, and then extends his hand once again, "Goodbye, Miss Kyland. Happy trails ahead, and I'll keep my fingers out of your business. But if you ever do find yourself saddled with unfortunate additions and wishing to just feel normal once again, there's a place to go for that now. I suppose, with that kind of damning from you it will unlikely be there for long."

[Lost_Deep]

A Park

Kate nods. "Good day." It's said simply, without malice or spite. She will then turn and leave.

[Ionbound]

[Temple of Camazotz]

The priest forsees the feint and, discarding all regard for his safety, dives at the woman, both hands extended trying to stab and grab the batlady while she's open between the feint and strike.

[Recaiden]

[Temple of Camazotz]

Discarding all regard for his safety. That sounds ... risky.
At the least.

He comes close to inflicting actual harm. But he fill find that holes open up in the batlady ahead of his blades, fur and flesh and cloth just...flowing out of the way, letting the blades hit open air.

"Oops."
The spear is a dagger again, hopefully pressed against the back of the priest's neck. If she misjudges and cuts him slightly, well, accidents happen.

[Ionbound]

[Temple of Camazotz]

The priest glares at the batlady and sighs, raising his hand in exaggerated care and says bitterly, "Fine. You win. Kill me then. I can't fight you."

[Recaiden]

[Temple of Camazotz]

"I would give your heart to the Father's glory, but he prefers you remain in this world, for now. The bats know you. The temple knows you. You will serve here yet, when I do not. Let go of your blades, open your mind, and pledge yourself to live again for the Father of Bats."

She backs away, resolidifying, and sheathes the knife, standing proud and tall, with wings open wide.

[Ionbound]

[Temple of Camazotz]

The priest angrily glares at her, but bitterly says, "Fine. If you want theatrics I can go along with it. I swear fealty to Father Camazotz, Lord of Bats, Patron of Assassins and Spies."

[Recaiden]

[Temple of Camazotz]

"Excellent. May you serve long and well."

Another attempt to read his mind, as the batlady draws her knife and sets the flat on his shoulders, as if he were being knighted. Then she lifts up the blade, and in the center, above the fox, between the eagle and the serpent, forms the outline of a bat.

"Now, I see no reason why we should be enemies here."

She smiles, as much as she can in this form, as the knife is finally set away for good.

[Ionbound]

[Temple of Camazotz]

The priest glares and says, "I can think of a few reasons. Is there anything else humiliating you want me to do or can you just leave?"

[Recaiden]

[Temple of Camazotz]

"Depends what you find humiliating."

The batwoman steps up to the priest. Very close.
"I didn't come here just to embarrass you. Here, what's you name?"

[Ionbound]

[Temple of Camazotz]

The priest pushes the batlady and says, "Not interested. And I'm not giving you my name, either. You've got my blood, and gods know how many enslavement rituals are based around names and blood."

[Recaiden]

[Temple of Camazotz]

The batlady is pushed away, not really resisting the force.
"Your loss."
"But at least you have a little bit of caution. That will serve you well here. Now, let me get out of your hair, my priest."

Flap up and away, and she spirals in on herself, becoming just any other bat, and flapping wildly down the hall and out of the temple.

[Ionbound]

[Temple of Camazotz]

The priest shouts, "I'm not your priest, dammit!" at the retreating crazywoman, then sighs, sits down in a chair that was there the entire time and shakes his head, holding it in his head.

[Rebonack]

[AS - Philip Memorial Library]

Reading the books in such a fashion may not be wise if only because they may or may not contain the ravings of lunatics and/or knowledge which the mortal mind was never meant to grasp. There are also a number of diagrams that seem to be trying to crawl off the page in flagrantly impossible fashions and lots of mention of someone or something called 'Ulathael' that ends up being evoked an awful lot.

There's a pretty good chance that this Ulathael is something awful.

Geneva turns her attention to the wizard's means of reading and her expression brightens! This is something she can actually related to! Something normal and not weird. "Oh! You have an eidetic memory! How easily are you able to cross reference the information you've recently learned?" See, up to this point Geneva was the only person Geneva knew who could learn like that. It allowed her to pick up the theoretical aspect of a new skill with frightening speed, even if the practical application required some practice.

[The Crystal Gardens]

Maph polishes off his snack and discards the stick into a nearby handy waste bin. "Well, if we're giving stories mine is pretty simple. My job is being a challenge rating appropriate random encounter. If you've ever wondered why adventurers are always running into monsters in dungeons that are just strong enough to be a threat without actually putting them into mortal peril? That's basically me. All of them. At the same time. It isn't a very fun job, but someone has to do it."

...

Is he being serious?

[A Park]

Geneva wouldn't be here if she could avoid it. She knows well enough the kind of nonsense a person might run into in the parks of Inside. The gardens are safe. But the parks? Hoo... You never know what kind of insanity you might run into. To that end, Geneva had decided to roll with (eheh, dice pun) the craziness and slip into her draconequus body. She had already been assaulted by a swarm of flesh-eating mallards, but a quick application of chaos magic had turned them into a flotilla of rubber ducks.

She's getting better at it, as it happens.

The chaos magic.

Specific results are still pretty hard. If one squeezes too hard on chaos magic it'll just squirt between one's talons and do whatever it fancies. It takes a gentle guiding hand to steer it in the right general direction and then one simply prays for the best.

Regardless!

Why is she in A Park to begin with?

Because there's a portal here, of course! A little one, no more than a pin-prick in reality. But that's still enough for her to experiment with. Mostly Geneva has just been rolling herself and checking to see if the ambient chaos magic has any impact on the stability of the rift before trying something more direct.

Thus far she's rolled a 2 (causing a stony spring to pop into existence under the feet of anyone nearby and begin spraying a fountain of cola into the sky), a 343 (causing a skeletal personification of Death to appear, give someone nearby a hug, and then vanish leaving them unharmed), and a 182 (giving someone nearby the distinct impression that they exist in two places at once which may or may not be true).

The results have been promising!

With each pulse of chaos magic the rift has widened ever so slightly. Now it's a good four centimeters wide! Geneva is studiously recording her observations on her PIPcolt.

[Shadowcaller]

[Devil's Charm Hospital]

The lawyer, nonplussed by the Cassiopeia-ish nature of the receptionist, nods and says, "I'm here for a blood transfusion," as she hands the Medusa the slip.

Outside Chadwick's Temple

"Shame I don't have an aspergillum." Arty says, still intently scanning the pages. He reaches into his belts and removes a small canteen.
"Will this be enough or should I stop at the corner store for a bigger bottle?" he asks, his eyes never leaving the book.

Outside Chadwick's Temple

"The ritual will take time but I can only imagine that Radu is doing in there right now. Perhaps you can simply ask one of the nearby temples for aid?" Chadwick suggests.

[Devil's Charm Hospital]

"Thank you." The receptionist accepts the note and types something into her computer. "A miss Clara Sanford, here for a fiendish blood transfusion?"

[Ionbound]

[Devil's Charm Hospital]

Clara nods and says, "Yep. That's me."

[Solidarity]

[AS - Philip Memorial Library]

Reading the books in such a fashion may not be wise if only because they may or may not contain the ravings of lunatics and/or knowledge which the mortal mind was never meant to grasp. There are also a number of diagrams that seem to be trying to crawl off the page in flagrantly impossible fashions and lots of mention of someone or something called 'Ulathael' that ends up being evoked an awful lot.

There's a pretty good chance that this Ulathael is something awful.

Geneva turns her attention to the wizard's means of reading and her expression brightens! This is something she can actually related to! Something normal and not weird. "Oh! You have an eidetic memory! How easily are you able to cross reference the information you've recently learned?" See, up to this point Geneva was the only person Geneva knew who could learn like that. It allowed her to pick up the theoretical aspect of a new skill with frightening speed, even if the practical application required some practice.

Since he isn't really reading, but rather capturing the page's image in his mind to read later, said issues might be under control. The moving diagrams pose a small problem though. Marcus stutters in his page flipping and looks up, blinking at Geneva when she speaks.

"Uh...yeah. Is it easy to tell, I guess?" he starts with a little uncertainty in his voice."I mean, if I sit here long enough I can recall just about all the images I've seen, but doing that takes a bit. Everyone in my family was like this. They taught me to cross reference what I'd learned pretty quick, since well, a lot of it was rotes for spells. It's hard to pull up a couple spells when you're unprepared otherwise."

His 'training' had a tendency to hurt when he wasn't prepared to deal with them. Being able to put together different effects of a spell to fit whatever situation quickly became a necessity for a young Marcus Runeheart.

[Deathkeeper]

outside Chadwick's Temple

Arty nods and closes the book.
I'm sure that Cos' priests would lend a hand. I can pick up some if my stuff if we need while we're there."
He says, turning to go.

[Lost_Deep]

[A Park]

Geneva wouldn't be here if she could avoid it. She knows well enough the kind of nonsense a person might run into in the parks of Inside. The gardens are safe. But the parks? Hoo... You never know what kind of insanity you might run into. To that end, Geneva had decided to roll with (eheh, dice pun) the craziness and slip into her draconequus body. She had already been assaulted by a swarm of flesh-eating mallards, but a quick application of chaos magic had turned them into a flotilla of rubber ducks.

She's getting better at it, as it happens.

The chaos magic.

Specific results are still pretty hard. If one squeezes too hard on chaos magic it'll just squirt between one's talons and do whatever it fancies. It takes a gentle guiding hand to steer it in the right general direction and then one simply prays for the best.

Regardless!

Why is she in A Park to begin with?

Because there's a portal here, of course! A little one, no more than a pin-prick in reality. But that's still enough for her to experiment with. Mostly Geneva has just been rolling herself and checking to see if the ambient chaos magic has any impact on the stability of the rift before trying something more direct.

Thus far she's rolled a 2 (causing a stony spring to pop into existence under the feet of anyone nearby and begin spraying a fountain of cola into the sky), a 343 (causing a skeletal personification of Death to appear, give someone nearby a hug, and then vanish leaving them unharmed), and a 182 (giving someone nearby the distinct impression that they exist in two places at once which may or may not be true).

The results have been promising!

With each pulse of chaos magic the rift has widened ever so slightly. Now it's a good four centimeters wide! Geneva is studiously recording her observations on her PIPcolt.

Kate sees the draconequus and is a little confused. She's kept up with MLP since ponies started becoming more common in the Nexus (it's good, but she doesn't see why people are crazy about it) and as thus she recognizes the general shape of the creature.

She quickly decides she should avoid it. But not run, that might tempt it. Just keep walking, go past it, be fine, be normal. Huh, it has a little computer gauntlet thing. That's kind of cool.

Kate's acting casual comes to an end when she half-trips over a small stone spout that appears at her feet. Momentarily confused, she does not get out of the way. As thus, she is suddenly sprayed by a large amount of cola. This results in her screaming in surprise, and staggering back a step before landing on her rump.

So much for just keep walking.

[Rebonack]

[AS - Philip Memorial Library]

The information gathered thus far is certainly relevant to what the wizard is looking for.

Or... At least some of it is. A goodly portion of it is insane rambling about how physical reality is nothing more than a dream of the Old Ones and that probing too far beyond the spheres of space and time will inevitably result in awful things. Other passages suggest that this Ulathael is all of space and time. Others go a step further and say that space and time are little more than a crude shadow of Ulathael, the great immanent one.

There are some geometric symbols and arrays that apparently draw on Ulathael's power to warp and tear the fabric of reality itself, but most texts descend into incoherent gibberish shortly after the authors describe the method for using it and a desire to do so.

Maaaaybe this magic isn't quite safe?

"That's pretty useful," Geneva replies with a little nod. "Though I guess it isn't quite how I learn, then. I remember basically everything I'm paying attention to, so I can miss things if my attention is divided. And synthesizing new information together with things I already know is pretty easy."

Knowledge and fact-based tests probably would fare well against her.

"Have you found what you were hoping to find?"

[A Park]

It's probably worth describing Geneva's draconequus form.

She's a serpentine creature with a build that's a strange fusion of equine and feline, almost akin to an oriental dragon, though with a better defined body. Thick, dark grey fur covers most of her body, though her underbelly is clad in obsidian scales etched with gold. Two Maleficent style horns grow from the back of her head with a third sabre-like horn sprouting from her forehead. Her eyes boast golden sclera, purple irises, and vertically slit pupils. Eyes that express far more than just a little bit of mischief. Her front limbs are equal parts eagle and lion while her back legs have all the strength and thickness of an earth pony's combined with the glove-hoofed grace of a unicorn. Two pairs of wings adorn her back, a larger pair equal parts dragon and griffin near her shoulders and a second, smaller pair like a congealing of pegasus and bat pony at her hips. Her tail is long and lithe, ending in a golden, a trapezohedron that appears almost like a spear point. The point appears to be a hollow frame containing stellar blackness flecked with flowing points of light a slowly turning galactic splash of blazing purple. A star trapped within a gilded cage.

Though perhaps her most striking feature is the pair of golden d6 faces on her haunches, as though she had a huge die simply growing out of her. Little purple tropical storm symbols of star sapphire surround each of the die's dots, slowly rotating.

Geneva starts at the scream before whirling around to face the source and discovers a soggy human.

A soggy human that is, without a doubt, her fault. The draconequus quickly slithers through the air before coiling herself around Kate's general location. "Oh goodness, I'm so sorry!" Geneva apologizes as she retrieves a towel from... somewhere. "I didn't think anyone else would be wandering around here. The parks Inside are really dangerous, you know."

[Earl of Purple]

R. Stigotto & Sons Ice Cream Shop

Natalie is looking at their choice of ice cream floats, specifically looking for ginger beer. Because a ginger beer ice cream float is really nice.

[Lost_Deep]

A Park

"They're not that dangerous." Kate says while she gets up. She says a thanks while accepting the towel. "I walk in the park all the time. Really! Weird stuff is in the vast minority."

"Ah, dangerous weird stuff. Normal weird stuff... this is the nexus."

[Rebonack]

[A Park]

"Wow, really? You would through THIS park all the time? I got attacked by a bunch of flesh eating mallards when I arrived here," Geneva replies, her tone thoughtful. "Maybe I just got an unfortunate roll of the dice... That's just how things go sometimes."

Those rubber ducks are still floating in a nearby pond...

"And weird! HA! Tell me about it! Tiny bipeds everywhere. If that isn't weird I don't know what is," Geneva reasons. "You seem pretty laid back about it, though. Have you been here a while? I've discovered that newcomers to the Nexus usually either adapt, get weird vomited all over them so they're just as strange as everything else, or have a complete nervous breakdown."

She smiles a way too huge smile at that comment. It looks like her teeth go all the way back to the hinge of her jaw in an incredibly unsettling fashion.

"Like me! I think I've managed to fill all three of those categories! I used to be niiiiiiice and normal, but the Nexus just can't abide by that, now can it?" she says as she uncoils from Kate and drifts up into the air while gravity tries really hard to ignore her. "Maybe I should try figuring that out once I get the bridge project done..." she muses aloud. "Why does the Nexus insist on weirding normal people?"

A beat.

Then her attention is back on Kate, once more grinning that huge grin. "Oooh! And here I am rambling without introducing myself! I'm Fortuna the Golden Dice of Wonder! A pleasure to meet you!"

Gene- wait.

What did you just say?

"I said Fortuna the Golden Dice of Wonder. You know, my name?"

But your name is Geneva Pressurefront!

"Is not."

Is so!

"Is noooooooot~! Not when I'm like THIS! I rolled up a new character, remember?"

*sigh* Whatever you say...